A Greater Music
Bae Suah, Deborah Smith (translation)From the author nominated for the Best Translated Book Award & the PEN Translation Prize
Near the beginning of A Greater Music, the narrator, a young Korean writer, falls into an icy river in the Berlin suburbs, where she’s been house-sitting for her on-off boyfriend Joachim. This sets into motion a series of memories that move between the hazily defined present & the period three years ago when she first lived in Berlin. Throughout, the narrator’s relationship with Joachim, a rough-and-ready metalworker, is contrasted with her friendship with M, an ultra-refined music-loving German teacher who was once her lover.
A novel of memories & wandering, A Greater Music blends riffs on music, language, & literature with a gut-punch of an emotional ending, establishing Bae Suah as one of the most exciting novelists working today.
About the Author: Bae Suah, one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary Korean authors, has published more than a dozen works & won several prestigious awards. She has also translated several books from the German, including works by W. G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, & Jenny Erpenbeck. Her first book to appear in English, Nowhere to be Found, was longlisted for a PEN Translation Prize & the Best Translated Book Award.
About the Translator: Deborah Smith has translated two other books by Bae Suah (Recitation & A Greater Music), & won the Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Han Kang's The Vegetarian. She is the founder of Tilted Axis Press.